“Stand like a beaten anvil.It is the part of a good athlete to be bruised and to prevail.”

“I am writing to all the churches to let it be known that I will gladly die for God if only you do not stand in my way... Let me be food for the wild beasts, for they are my way to God.”

“I have no taste for corruptible food nor for the pleasures of this life. I desire the Bread of God, which is the Flesh of Jesus Christ, who was of the seed of David, and for drink I desire His Bloo...”

“Take heed, then, often to come together to give thanks to God, and show forth His praise. For when you assemble frequently in the same place, the powers of Satan are destroyed, and the destruction ...”

“May nothing entice me till I happily make my way to Jesus Christ! Fire, cross, struggles with wild beasts, wrenching of bones, mangling of limbs - let them come to me, provided only I make my way t...”

“At roughly the same time, on the other end of the Roman world in Syria, Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch, was considering and writing about the same topics as Clement. Ignatius had been a disciple o...”

“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that youve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you sa...”

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there i...”

“You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestation of your own blessings.”

“It is only with true love and compassion that we can begin to mend what is broken in the world. It is these two blessed things that can begin to heal all broken hearts.”

“... its a blessed thing to love and feel loved in return.”

“They had killed themselves over our dying forests, over manatees maimed by propellers as they surfaced to drink from garden hoses; they had killed themselves at the sight of used tires stacked high...”

“The world seemed to shimmer a little at the edges.”

“If we cannot accept the importance of the world, which considers itself important, if in the midst of that world our laughter finds no echo, we have but one choice: to take the world as a whole and...”