Sunday Palm Quotes & Sayings

It is a tragedy, perhaps, that human beings can get so much energy and enthusiasm from hate. — Kurt Vonnegut

The Donkey
When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born.
With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil's walking parody
On all four-footed things.
The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.
Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet. — G.K. Chesterton

And people are to march around the church to commemorate the event, Palm Sunday, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem and was greeted with applause and with palms. People thought he had come to overthrow the Romans, but ... no ... he had come to change THEM ... and that led to things turning bad. — Garrison Keillor

Tomorrow the rush of men, all working for a living, would drown him; but now, at this moment, in this soft green twilight, this soft green Sunday evening, when the heart of the world seemed to lie beating in the palm of his hand, he sat in that huge house upstairs terrified that he would never live. — Andrew Holleran

Receive this cross of ash upon your brow
Brought from the burning of Palm Sunday's cross;
The forests of the world are burning now
And you make late repentance for the loss.
But all the trees of God would clap their hands,
The very stones themselves would shout and sing,
If you could covenant to love these lands
And recognize in Christ their lord and king.
He sees the slow destruction of those trees,
He weeps to see the ancient places burn,
And still you make what purchases you please
And still to dust and ashes you return.
But Hope could rise from ashes even now
Beginning with this sign upon your brow. — Malcolm Guite

My dear young friends, I want to invite you to "dare to love". Do not desire anything less for your life than a love that is strong and beautiful and that is capable of making the whole of your existence a joyful undertaking of giving yourselves as a gift to God and your brothers and sisters, in imitation of the One who vanquished hatred and death for ever through love (cf. Rev 5:13).
Love is the only force capable of changing the heart of the human person and of all humanity, by making fruitful the relations between men and women, between rich and poor, between cultures and civilizations. (Message for the 22nd World Youth Day: Palm Sunday, 1 April 2007) — Pope Benedict XVI

When I am paid a compliment, I must compare myself with the little donkey that carried Christ on Palm Sunday. And I say to myself: If that little creature, hearing the applause of the crowd, had become proud and had begun -- jackass that he was -- to bow his thanks left and right like a prima donna, how much hilarity he would have aroused! Don't act the same! — Pope John Paul I

Of course, if you can pretend to be strong all your life, then you can be very comforting to those around you. — Kurt Vonnegut

Recall the cold
Of Towton on Palm Sunday before dawn,
Wakefield, Tewkesbury : fastidious trumpets
Shrilling into the ruck ; some trampled
Acres, parched, sodden or blanched by sleet,
Stuck with strange-postured dead. Recall the wind's
Flurrying, darkness over the human mire. — Geoffrey Hill

If you can be lifted up by your righteousness to sit with God, the whole planet will able to fit into your palm — Sunday Adelaja

I would have all the professors in colleges, all the teachers in schools of every kind, including those in Sunday schools, agree that they would teach only what they know, that they would not palm off guesses as demonstrated truths. — Robert Green Ingersoll

But Palm Sunday tells us that ... it is the cross that is the true tree of life. — Pope Benedict XVI

The four-week period of Advent before Christmas - and the six-week period of Lent before Easter - are times of penance and life change for Christians. In our book The Last Week, we suggested that Lent was a penance time for having been in the wrong procession and a preparation time for moving over to the right one by Palm Sunday. That day's violent procession of the horse-mounted Pilate and his soldiers was contrasted with the nonviolent procession of the donkey-mounted Jesus and his companions. We asked: in which procession would we have walked then and in which do we walk now? — Marcus J. Borg

I have graded my separate works from A to D. The grades I hand out to myself do not place me in literary history. I am comparing myself with myself. Thus can I give myself an A-plus for Cat's Cradle, while knowing that there was a writer named William Shakespeare. The report card is chronological, so you can plot my rise and fall on graph paper, if you like:
Player Piano B
The Sirens of Titan A
Mother Night A
Cat's Cradle A-plus
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater A
Slaughterhouse-Five A-plus
Welcome to the Monkey House B-minus
Happy Birthday, Wanda June D
Breakfast of Champions C
Wampeters, Foma & Grandfalloons C
Slapstick D
Jailbird A
Palm Sunday C — Kurt Vonnegut

Vatican's secretly composed message to all of Germany's Catholics. On Palm Sunday, 1937, the letter had been read by every priest, bishop, and cardinal across Germany to their congregations and three hundred thousand copies had been disseminated. Drafted by Munich's Cardinal von Faulhaber and Pope Pius XI, it told German Catholics in carefully veiled terms that National Socialism was an evil religion based on racism that stood contrary to the church's teachings and every man's right to equality. It made reference to "an insane and arrogant prophet" without naming Hitler. — Adam Makos

Listening to the Gospel on Palm Sunday, it struck me that many people criticise Pontius Pilate for his role in the affair while letting the multitude go scot free. Pilate did what little he could to dissuade them from the extremely unpleasant course of action on which they were set, but the multitude kept shouting for a crucifixion. Pilate could not have done more without provoking a riot. The crucifixion when it happened was a victory for direct democracy against the effete, liberal paternalism of Pilate.
If I am right, and the crucifixion be seen as an early victory for the principle of direct democracy, then it must follow ... that good men should struggle to confound and frustrate the multitude whenever possible. — Auberon Waugh