Saint Mark Quotes & Sayings

Objections to Christianity ... are phrased in words, but that does not mean that they are really a matter of language and analysis and argument. Words are tokens of the will. If something stronger than language were available then we would use it. But by the same token, words in defense of Christianity miss the mark as well: they are a translation into the dispassionate language of argument of something that resides far deeper in the caverns of volition, of commitment. Perhaps this is why Saint Francis, so the story goes, instructed his followers to "preach the Gospel always, using words if necessary." It is not simply and straightforwardly wrong to make arguments in the defense of the Christian faith, but it is a relatively superficial activity: it fails to address the core issues. — Alan Jacobs

I don't like happy people," Andrew said. "They're already happy; they don't need to be liked." "Wow, so selfless," Mark said. "You're a saint. I commend your selflessness. Amazing. — Tao Lin

God has great plans for you today ... creative and unexpected means by which He will make you a saint. He needs only your joyful submission to His plan. — Mark Hart

As the sun rises first on mountain-tops and gilds them with his light, and presents one of the most charming sights to the eye of the traveller; so is it one of the most delightful contemplations in the world to mark the glow of the Spirit's light on the head of some saint, who has risen up in spiritual stature. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Modesty in dress and language and deportment is a true mark of refinement and a hallmark of a virtuous Latter-day Saint woman. — Ezra Taft Benson

It is the mark of a mean, vulgar and ignoble spirit to dwell on the thought of food before meal times or worse to dwell on it afterwards, to discuss it and wallow in the remembered pleasures of every mouthful. Those whose minds dwell before dinner on the spit, and after on the dishes, are fit only to be scullions. — Saint Francis De Sales

Saint Mark, chapter 16, verse 6. — Terry Hayes

How I hate this world. I would like to tear it apart with my own two hands if I could. I would like to dismantle the universe star by star, like a treeful of rotten fruit. Nor do I believe in progress. A vermin-eaten saint scratching his filth for heaven is better off than you damned in clean linen. Progress doubles our tenure in a vale of tears. Man is a mistake, to be corrected only by his abolition, which he gives promise of seeing to himself. Oh, let him pass, and leave the earth to the flowers that carpet the earth wherever he explodes his triumphs. Man is inconsolable, thanks to that eternal "Why?" when there is no Why, that question mark twisted like a fishhook in the human heart. "Let there be light," we cry, and only the dawn breaks. — Peter De Vries

The other song we did was my cover of "Addicted to Love." There used to be a sort of karaoke booth on Saint Mark's, where anyone could go in and record themselves. I chose "Addicted to Love" because I liked Robert Palmer's video, with its background cast of zombie models identically dressed and holding guitars. I took the tape with the canned version of the song back to the studio, and we sped up the vocal to make it sound higher in pitch. Later I brought the cassette mix to Macy's, where they had a video version of the karaoke sound booth. You could customize a background while two cameras filmed you. For my backdrop I picked jungle fighters, and I wore my Black Flag earrings. The entire bill came to $19.99, and in a slick, commercial MTV world, it felt gratifying and empowering to pay for the whole thing with a credit card. — Kim Gordon

We cannot escape the conclusion that because of performance in the pre-existence some of us are born as Chinese, some as Japanese, some as Indians, some as Negroes, some as Americans, some as Latter-day Saints. These are rewards and punishments, fully in harmony with His established policy in dealing with sinners and saints, rewarding all according to their deeds — Mark E. Petersen

It is the mark of a true saint that his sorrows remind him of his sins, and his sorrow for sin drives him to his God. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

God made saints out of far worse people than you. — Mark Hart

Saints didn't set out to have everyone follow them. Saints set out to follow Jesus, and others followed them in their pursuit of Him. — Mark Hart

Mark Twain once told a story about a man who scoured the planet looking for the greatest general who ever lived. When the man was informed that the person he sought had already died and gone to heaven, he made a trip to the Pearly Gates to look for him. Saint Peter pointed at a regular-looking Joe. "That isn't the greatest of all generals," protested the man. "I knew that person when he lived on Earth, and he was only a cobbler." "I know that," said Saint Peter, "but if he had been a general, he would have been the greatest of them all. — Susan Cain

You have heard about the reindeer that pull old Santa's sled.
But mostly I hate Rudolph and wish that he were dead.
With his nose of red which we all know just can't be true.
I wish someone would just kill him, that someone could be you.
He is Santa's favorite and to the front he can be found.
Instead of his red nose, "I" think it should be brown.
He believes that Santa likes him and thinks that he's a winner.
But Santa Claus has other plans he wants Rudolph for his dinner.
Old Saint Nick is greedy this I know without a doubt.
What else do you think happens to all the great toys we go without?
He takes them and he breaks them be cause he doesn't care a bit.
To me it doesn't matter, Why, he can keep his "Schict".
Yes' it's true that I hate Santa too, dressed in his suit of silk.
That's why this year with the homemade cookies,
I'm going to leave some poison milk. — Mark W. Boyer

Some writers are the kind of solo violinists who need complete silence to tune their instruments. Others want to hear every member of the orchestra - they'll take a cue from a clarinet, from an oboe, even. I am one of those. My writing desk is covered in open novels. I read lines to swim in a certain sensibility, to strike a particular note, to encourage rigour when I'm too sentimental, to bring verbal ease when I'm syntactically uptight. I think of reading like a balanced diet; if your sentences are baggy, too baroque, cut back on fatty Foster Wallace, say, and pick up Kafka, as roughage. If your aesthetic has become so refined it is stopping you from placing a single black mark on white paper, stop worrying so much about what Nabokov would say; pick up Dostoyevsky, patron saint of substance over style. — Zadie Smith

a sinner is pleading to Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates: "Wait, those weren't lies," the sinner says. "That was spin! — Mark Leibovich

For me the road became a zone, in places like Saint Marks poetry Project where I worked for 12 years. — Anne Waldman

At this instant, Alessandro was electrified, as if lightning had struck the telephone wire or Saint Elmo's fire had filled the room, for part of the dream that he could not recall had come back to him with full force. — Mark Helprin

McQueen was daring, original, exciting. He shook up the establishment with his creativity and understood what it takes to be a great British ambassador for fashion. I admired him very much. He was a fashion revolutionary that, like me, made the journey from [Central] Saint Martins to Paris where he put his own unique mark on the industry. He will not be forgotten. — John Galliano

What is the mark of love for your neighbor? Not to seek what is for your own benefit, but what is for the benefit of the one loved, both in body and in soul. — Saint Basil

The one true mark of a saint of God is the inner creativity that flows from being totally surrendered to Jesus Christ. — Oswald Chambers

Giving God permission to make you a saint will ruin your life. — Mark Hart

as those old engravings of the 'Cenacolo,' or that painting by Gentile Bellini, in which one sees, in a state in which they no longer exist, the masterpiece of Leonardo and the portico of Saint Mark's. We — Marcel Proust

All saints can do miracles, but few of them can keep a hotel. — Mark Twain

My father was a Saint Bernard, my mother was a Collie, but I am a Presbyterian. — Mark Twain

When an archer desires to shoot his arrows successfully, he first takes great pains over his posture and aligns himself accurately with his mark. It should be the same for you who are about to shoot the head of the wicked devil. Let us be concerned first for the good order of sensations and then for the good posture of inner thoughts.' — Saint John Chrysostom

You don't become a saint by comparing yourself to a sinner. — Mark Hart

What did all the saints have in common? They feared sin more than even physical death. — Mark Hart

What is the mark of a Christian? That he be purified of all defilement of the flesh and of the spirit in the Blood of Christ, perfecting sanctification in the fear of God and the love of Christ, and that he have no blemish nor spot nor any such thing; that he be holy and blameless and so eat the Body of Christ and drink His Blood; for 'he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgement to himself.' What is the mark of those who eat the Bread and drink the Cup of Christ? That they keep in perpetual remembrance Him who died for us and rose again. — Saint Basil

You can't live on nothing." "I can live on sunlight falling across little bridges. I can live on the Botticelli-blue cornflower pattern on the out-billowing garments of the attendant to Aphrodite and the pattern of strawberry blossoms and the little daisies in the robe of Primavera. I can live on the doves flying (he says) in cohorts from the underside of the faded gilt of the balcony of Saint Mark's cathedral and the long corridors of the Pitti Palace. I can gorge myself on Rome and the naked Bacchus and the face like a blasted lightning-blasted white birch that is some sort of Fury. — H.D.

It is in our darkest cultures that the greatest saints rise, stand, and lead. — Mark Hart

Of the 417 commandments, only a single one of the 417 has found ministerial obedience; multiply and replenish the earth. To it sinner & saint, scholar & ignoramus, Christian & savage are alike loyal. — Mark Twain

Obedience is a virtue of so excellent a nature, that Our Lord was pleased to mark its observance upon the whole course of His life; thus He often says, He did not come to do His Own will, but that of His Heavenly Father. — Saint Francis De Sales

One man may hit the mark, another blunder; but heed not these distinctions. Only from the alliance of the one, working with and through the other, are great things born. — Antoine De Saint-Exupery

The mark of a saint is not perfection, but consecration. A saint is not a person without faults, but a man who has given himself without reserve to God. — Brooke Westcott