Quotes & Sayings About Nineveh

Someone who has actually tasted truth is not contentious for truth. Someone who is considered by people to be zealous for truth has not yet learned what truth is really like; once he has truly learned it, he will cease from zealousness on its behalf. — Isaac Of Nineveh

Afflictions for God's sake are dearer to Him than any prayer or sacrifice. — Isaac Of Nineveh

Above anything, welcome silence, for it brings fruits that no tongue can speak of, neither can it be explained. — Isaac Of Nineveh

There is love like a small lamp, which goes out when the oil is consumed; or like a stream which dries up when it doesn't rain. But there is a love that is like a mighty spring gushing up out of the earth; it keeps flowing forever, and is inexhaustible. — Isaac Of Nineveh

Kimaria smirked and placed her hands behind her back. "Come now. It doesn't have to come to that. Violence is so beneath us."
"No, it isn't," said Helianthus at once.
"Well . . . it is beneath me," the high queen said and touched a hand to her chest. "Unlike you, I am civilized. I wear shoes and I have a last name." They watched as she eased into a chair. She crossed one leg over the other, folded her arms, and regarded them calmly. "Aren't you the least bit curious as to how I snatched the famed Nineveh Atvaris from our dark past? You can't be that boring. — Ash Gray

If God is slow in answering your request, or if you ask but do not promptly receive anything, do not be upset, for you are not wiser than God. — Isaac Of Nineveh

Be dead in life, and you will not live in death. Let your soul die strenuously, and not live in weakness. Not only those who suffer death for the sake of faith in Christ are martyrs; but also those who die because of their observance of His commandments. — Isaac Of Nineveh

When you want to make a beginning of a good deed, first prepare for temptations, which will come to you, and don't doubt the truth of that which you do for God. — Isaac Of Nineveh

If you are truly merciful, then when what is yours is unjustly taken, don't be sad inside, and do not tell of our loss to your neighbor. Let a better loss, inflicted by those who insult you, be absorbed by your mercy. — Isaac Of Nineveh

All this visible greatness was really one with Nineveh and Tyre. — Barbara W. Tuchman

There was Babylon and Nineveh; they were built of brick. Athens was gold marble columns. Rome was held up on broad arches of rubble. In Constantinople the minarets flame like great candles round the Golden Horn ... Steel, glass, tile, concrete will be the materials of the skyscraper. Crammed on the narrow island the millionwindowed buildings will just glittering, pyramid on pyramid like the white cloudhead above a thunderstorm. — John Dos Passos

Be at peace with your own soul, then heaven and earth will be at peace with you. — Isaac Of Nineveh

A man who is truly humble is not troubled when he is wronged and he says nothing to justify himself against the injustice, but he accepts slander as truth; he does not attempt to persuade men that he is calumniated, but he begs forgiveness. — Isaac Of Nineveh

There is a tendency for us to minimize the Word of the Lord. Maybe because of its familiarity. "Familiarity breeds contempt," the saying goes. But it may be more accurate to say that "familiarity breeds indifference." The more we hear some warnings, the less seriously we take them - like the tornado warnings in grade school we didn't take seriously. The people of Nineveh heard God's warning. God got their attention, and they were honest with themselves about themselves. One of the reasons we minimize our own sin and rebellion is that we don't take God's Word seriously. Maybe a strong pinch is needed to get us to sit up and pay attention. — Kyle Idleman

O Christ, on you the many-eyed cherubim are unable to look because of the glory of your countenance, yet out of your love you accepted spittle on your face. Remove the shame from my face, and grant me to have an unashamed face before you at the time of prayer. — Isaac Of Nineveh

May your divinity, Lord, take pleasure in me and lead me above the world to be with you. — Isaac Of Nineveh

there are just two cities on your map. The Nineveh of obedience and the Tarshish of disobedience. You are going to Nineveh or to Tarshish. — Clovis Gillham Chappell

Every age has its dreams, its symbols of romance. Past generations were moved by the graceful power of the great windjammers, by the distant whistle of locomotives pounding through the night, by the caravans leaving on the Golden Road to Samarkand, by quinqueremes of Nineveh from distant Ophir ... Our grandchildren will likewise have their inspiration-among the equatorial stars. They will be able to look up at the night sky and watch the stately procession of the Ports of Earth-the strange new harbors where the ships of space make their planetfalls and their departures. — Arthur C. Clarke

Whoever can weep over himself for one hour is greater than the one who is able to teach the whole world; whoever recognizes the depth of his own frailty is greater than the one who sees visions of angels. — Isaac Of Nineveh

Love is the fruit of prayer ... Patiently abiding in prayer signifies a man's renunciation of himself. Therefore the self-denial of the soul turns into love for God. — Isaac Of Nineveh

seen Nineveh repent a century earlier (see the book of Jonah), but the city had fallen back into wickedness. Assyria, the world power controlling the Fertile Crescent, seemed unstoppable. Its ruthless and savage warriors had already conquered Israel, the northern kingdom, — Anonymous

Without temptations, it is not possible to learn the wisdom of the Spirit. It is not possible that Divine love be strengthened in your soul. Before temptations, a man prays to God as a stranger. When temptations are allowed to come by the love of God, and he does not give in to them, then he stands before God as a sincere friend. For in fulfilling the will of God, he has made war on the enemy of God and conquered him. — Isaac Of Nineveh

The prayer of one who does not consider himself a sinner is not accepted by the Lord. — Isaac Of Nineveh

In all things that you find in the Holy Scriptures, seek out the purpose of the words, that you may enter into the depth of the thoughts of the saints and understand them with greater exactness. Do not approach the reading of the Divine Scriptures without prayer and asking the help of God. Consider prayer to be the key to the true understanding of that which is said in the Holy Scriptures. — Isaac Of Nineveh

The dust comes secretly day after day, Lies on my ledge and dulls my shining things. But O this dust I shall drive away Is flowers and kings, Is Solomon's temple, poets, Nineveh. — Viola Meynell

Just as a strongly flowing fountain is not blocked up by a handful of earth, so the compassion of the Creator is not overcome by the wickedness of his creatures. — Isaac Of Nineveh

And even as this old guide-book boasts of the, to us, insignificant Liverpool of fifty years ago, the New York guidebooks are now vaunting of the magnitude of a town, whose future inhabitants, multitudinous as the pebbles on the beach, and girdled in with high walls and towers, flanking endless avenues of opulence and taste, will regard all our Broadways and Bowerys as but the paltry nucleus to their Nineveh. From far up the Hudson, beyond Harlem River where the young saplings are now growing, that will overarch their lordly mansions with broad boughs, centuries old; they may send forth explorers to penetrate into the then obscure and smoky alleys of the Fifth Avenue and Fourteenth Street; and going still farther south, may exhume the present Doric Custom-house, and quote it as a proof that their high and mighty metropolis enjoyed a Hellenic antiquity. — Herman Melville

Do you know how long God took to destroy the Tower of Babel, folks? Seven minutes. Do you know how long the Lord God took to destroy Babylon and Nineveh? Seven minutes. There's more wickedness in one block in New York City than there was in a square mile in Nineveh, and how long do you think the Lord God of Sabboath will take to destroy New York City and Brooklyn and the Bronx? Seven seconds. Seven Seconds. — John Dos Passos

There is no man who will not be grieved at the time of his chastisement; and there is not man who will not endure a bitter time, when he must drink the poison of temptations. Without them, it is not possible to obtain a strong will. When he has often experienced the help of God in temptations, a man also obtains strong faith. — Isaac Of Nineveh

Do not test out your mind on the grounds that you are examining what seductive and impure thoughts look like, imagining that, as you do this, you will not be overcome by them. Even the wise have in this way been thrown into confusion and become infatuated. — Isaac Of Nineveh

If you cannot close the mouth of one who reviles his brother, at least avoid conversation with him. — Isaac Of Nineveh

Conquer evil people by gentle kindness, and make zealous people wonder at your goodness. Put the lover of legality to shame by your compassion. — Isaac Of Nineveh

If, at the time when the mind is praying it is distracted by any extraneous thought or worry about anything, then this prayer is not called pure. — Isaac Of Nineveh

The man with a heart cannot think about or see creatures without his eyes filling up with tears because of the immense compassion which seizes his heart. — Isaac Of Nineveh

Nineveh represented the sin center of the world. Everything godless happened there; by all accounts its people were perverse, sadistic, and evil. The very fact that Jonah was even sent to such a place reveals that God's capacity to forgive is greater than our capacity to sin. — Tullian Tchividjian

Man, a gigantic child, must play with Babylon and Nineveh, with Isis and with Ashtaroth. By all means let him dream of the Bondage of Egypt, so long as he is free from it. By all means let him take up the Burden of Tyre, so long as he can take it lightly. But the old gods must be his dolls, not his idols. His central sanctities, his true possessions, should be Christian and simple. And just as a child would cherish most a wooden horse or a sword that is a mere cross of wood, so man, the great child, must cherish most the old plain things of poetry and piety; that horse of wood that was the epic end of Ilium, or that cross of wood that redeemed and conquered the world. — G.K. Chesterton

Love sinners, but hate their deeds, and do not disdain sinners for their failings, so that you yourself do not fall into the temptation in which they abide ... Do not be angry at anyone and do not hate anyone, neither for their faith, nor for their shameful deeds ... Do not foster hatred for the sinner, for we are all guilty ... Hate his sins, and pray for him, so that you may be made like unto Christ, who had no dislike for sinners, but prayed for them. — Isaac Of Nineveh

If zeal had been appropriate for putting humanity right, why did God the Word clothe himself in the body, using gentleness and humility in order to bring the world back to his Father? — Isaac Of Nineveh

The man who follows Christ in solitary mourning is greater than he who praises Christ amid the congregation of men. — Isaac Of Nineveh

Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown. — Jonah

Humility collects the soul into a single point by the power of silence. A truly humble man has no desire to be known or admired by others, but wishes to plunge from himself into himself, to become nothing, as if he had never been born. When he is completely hidden to himself in himself, he is completely with God — Isaac Of Nineveh

Do not waste this life in vain pursuits. — Isaac Of Nineveh

Be persecuted, rather than be a persecutor. Be crucified, rather than be a crucifier. Be treated unjustly, rather than treat anyone unjustly. Be oppressed, rather than be an oppressor. Be gentle rather than zealous. Lay hold of goodness, rather than justice. — Isaac Of Nineveh

When you want to direct someone toward the good, first put him at peace bodily and honor him with words of love. For nothing inclines such a man to shame and induces him to cast of his vice and be changed for the better as do bodily goods and honor, which he sees in you. Then, with love tell him a word or two, and do not be inflamed with anger toward him. Do not let him see any cause of enmity toward you. For love does not know how to lose its temper. — Isaac Of Nineveh

Solitude is an ocean with wonderful places hidden in its depths. — Isaac Of Nineveh

The war tried to kill us in the spring. As grass greened the plains of Nineveh and the weather warmed, we patrolled the low-slung hills beyond the cities and towns. We moved over them and through the tall grass on faith, kneading paths into the windswept growth like pioneers. While we slept, the war rubbed its thousand ribs against the ground in prayer. — Kevin Powers

The soul that loves God has its rest in God and in God alone. In all the paths that men walk in in the world, they do not attain peace until they draw nigh to hope in God. — Isaac Of Nineveh

Wishing to open my mouth, O brethren, and speak on the exalted theme of humility, I am filled with fear, even as a man who understands that he is about to discourse concerning God with the art of his own words. For humility is the raiment of the Godhead. — Isaac Of Nineveh

Jonah can't see how Assyria could serve any useful purpose. How could this commission better Israel? Jonah might even fear that God will reverse His judgment against Nineveh. If that 'unchanging God' changes His mind about Nineveh's destruction, then Jonah's personal religion won't make sense. (Nu 23:19) The truth is, Jonah is not as overwhelmed by his new assignment as he is by his own small mindedness. (page 5) — Michael Ben Zehabe

He was like some prophet of old, scourging the sins of the people. He leaped about in a frenzy of inspiration till I feared he would do himself an injury. Sometimes he expressed himself in a somewhat odd manner, but every word carried conviction. He showed me New York in its true colours. He showed me the vanity and wickedness of sitting in gilded haunts of vice, eating lobster when decent people should be in bed.
'He said that the tango and the fox-trot were devices of the devil to drag people down into the Bottomless Pit. He said that there was more sin in ten minutes with a negro banjo orchestra than in all the ancient revels of Nineveh and Babylon. And when he stood on one leg and pointed right at where I was sitting and shouted "This means you!" I could have sunk through the floor. — P.G. Wodehouse

Nineveh, Tyre, a God-forsaken railway in Siam, Dorrigo Evans said, flame — Richard Flanagan

Let there always be a preponderance of mercy with you, even though you don't feel such mercy in yourself, as God has for the world ... A cruel and merciless heart is never purified. A merciful man is the doctor of his own soul, because as it were a by a strong wind from is heart he drives out the darkness of the passions. — Isaac Of Nineveh

Someone who bears a grudge while he prays is like a person who sows in the sea and expects to reap a harvest. — Isaac Of Nineveh

Somehow we American pastors, without really noticing what was happening, got our vocations redefined in the terms of American careerism. We quit thinking of the parish as a location for pastoral spirituality and started thinking of it as an opportunity for advancement. Tarshish, not Nineveh, was the destination. The moment we did that, we started thinking wrongly, for the vocation of pastor has to do with living out the implications of the word of God in community, not sailing off into the exotic seas of religion in search of fame and fortune. — Eugene H. Peterson

The earth turned to bring us closer,
it spun on itself and within us,
and finally joined us together in this dream
as written in the Symposium.
Nights passed by, snowfalls and solstices;
time passed in minutes and millennia.
An ox cart that was on its way to Nineveh
arrived in Nebraska.
A rooster was singing some distance from the world,
in one of the thousand pre-lives of our fathers.
The earth was spinning with its music carrying us on board;
it didn't stop turning a single moment
as if so much love, so much that's miraculous
was only an adagio written long ago
in the Symposium's score. — Eugenio Montejo

Dispassion doesn't mean to no longer feel the passions, but to no longer accept them. — Isaac Of Nineveh

This life has been given to you for repentance; do not waste it in vain pursuits. — Isaac Of Nineveh

If you practice an excellent virtue without perceiving the taste of its aid, do not marvel; for until a man becomes humble, he will not receive a reward for his labor. Recompense is given, not for labor, but for humility. — Isaac Of Nineveh

As a handful of sand thrown into the ocean, so are the sins of all flesh as compared with the mind of God. — Isaac Of Nineveh

Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you. — Jonah

Speech is the organ of this present world. Silence is the mystery of the world to come. — Isaac Of Nineveh

Draw nigh to the righteous, and through them you will draw nigh to God. Communicate with those who possess humility, and you will learn morals from them. A man who follows one who loves God becomes rich in the mysteries of God; but he who follows an unrighteous and proud man gets far away from God, and will be hated by his friends. — Isaac Of Nineveh

May be mine the lesson that Jonah teaches to all sinners; and therefore to ye, and still more to me, for I am a greater sinner than ye. And now how gladly would I come down from this mast-head and sit on the hatches there where you sit, and listen as you listen, while some one of you reads ME that other and more awful lesson which Jonah teaches to ME, as a pilot of the living God. How being an anointed pilot-prophet, or speaker of true things, and bidden by the Lord to sound those unwelcome truths in the ears of a wicked Nineveh, Jonah, appalled at the hostility he should raise, fled from his mission, and sought to escape his duty and his God by taking ship at Joppa. But God is everywhere; Tarshish he never reached. As — Herman Melville

No one can sense his own weakness is at least a small temptation is not allowed to afflict either his body or his soul. Then, comparing his weakness to the help of God, a man comes to know its magnitude. But whoever does not know that he needs God's help, let him make many prayers. Insofar as he multiplies them, in that measure will he be humbled. — Isaac Of Nineveh

Make peace with yourself, and both heaven and earth will make peace with you. — Isaac Of Nineveh

To those great geniuses now in petticoats, who shall write novels for the beloved reader's children, these men and things will be as much legend and history as Nineveh, or Coeur de Lion, or Jack Sheppard. — William Makepeace Thackeray

The same Spirit who moved in Nineveh and in the Great Awakening still fills the church today. The same power that brought Jesus back from the dead still animates our preaching. People are not "more spiritually dead" today than they were in the days of Jonah or the days of the Great Awakening. There are no degrees of deadness, or any such thing as "mostly dead" (apologies to The Princess Bride). Every conversion to Christ requires the same, glorious miracle of resurrection, and God has not lost his ability to raise the dead. We've simply lost confidence that he will do it on a large scale. — J.D. Greear

The Commandments of God are higher than all the treasures of the earth. Whoever has acquired them has received God within himself. — Isaac Of Nineveh

Whoever hates his sins will stop sinning; and whoever confesses them will receive remission. A man can not abandon the habit of sin if he does not first gain enmity toward sin, nor can he receive remission of sin without confession of sin. For the confession of sin is the cause of true humility. — Isaac Of Nineveh

Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir, Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine, With a cargo of ivory, And apes and peacocks, Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine. — John Masefield

It is impossible to draw near to God without sorrows, without which human righteousness cannot remain unchanged ... If you desire virtue, than give yourself to every affliction, for afflictions produce humility. If someone abides in virtue without afflictions, the door of pride is opened to him. — Isaac Of Nineveh

Real men can carry carpets, Claire. Keep that in mind when looking for a husband. — Isaac Of Nineveh

As a mark of gratitude for his previous patronage, and a slight super-added morsel after breakfast, put likewise into his hand a whale! The great fish, reversing his experience with the prophet of Nineveh, immediately began his progress down the same red pathway of fate whiter so varied a caravan had preceded him. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

He was commissioned to go east to Nineveh, — Anonymous

God requires not the doing of the commandments for their own sake, but the correction of the soul, for whose sake He established the commandments. — Isaac Of Nineveh

For the senior officers in Iraq, at least in 2005-2006, the responsibility was to the men at the top, the media, the message, the public back home - anything and everything, it seemed, but the soldiers under their command. And that's the ultimate betrayal of Iraq, the one that disillusioned me in Baghdad and Nineveh and keeps me outraged today. — Luis Carlos Montalvan

Behold, for years and generations, the way of God has been leveled by the cross and by death. How is this with thee, that thou seest the afflictions of the way as if they were out of the way? Doest not thou wish to follow the steps of the saints? Or doest thou wish to go a way which is especially for thee, without suffering? the way unto God is a daily cross. No one can ascend unto heaven with comfort, we know where the way of comfort leads. — Isaac Of Nineveh

What it had indexed to was only an idea of a place, an abstraction formed from memories too brief and passing to account for the small effects of time: wind scouring and lifting the dust of the plains of Nineveh in immeasurable increments, the tuck of a river farther into its bend, hour by hour, year by year; the map would become less and less a picture of fact and more a poor translation of memory in two dimensions. It reminded me of talking, how what is said is never quite what was thought, and what is heard is never quite what was said. It wasn't much in the way of comfort, but everything has a little failure in it, and we still make do somehow. — Kevin Powers