the Highest Good QUOTES

1 " ... the proper self-knowledge and self-love of every created thing is ipso facto a participation in the knowledge and love of God. The entire universe moves by desire for the Highest Good simply because every part of it loves what God loves - namely, its own being. "

― Robert Farrar Capon , Between Noon & Three: Romance, Law & the Outrage of Grace

2 " My life guides offer my comfort, solace, joy, love, and bliss. I gratefully accept it, as needed, for my highest good and the highest good of all life. "

― Amy Leigh Mercree , Joyful Living: 101 Ways to Transform Your Spirit and Revitalize Your Life

3 " God is the highest good of the reasonable creature. The enjoyment of him is our proper; and is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Better than fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of any, or all earthly friends. These are but shadows; but the enjoyment of God is the substance. These are but scattered beams; but God is the sun. These are but streams; but God is the fountain. These are but drops, but God is the ocean. "

― Jonathan Edwards , The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 17: Sermons and Discourses, 1730-1733

4 " Being creatures means that we cannot re-create ourselves in any fashion or form that we desire by a simple act of the will or the complex work of a surgeon. When we as creatures reject the Creator's blueprint, we are both rebelling against the natural order of how things objectively are, and (thought it may not seem like it) we are rejecting the life that is going to be the highest good for us. "

5 " ...[T]he right way is to give one's attention first to the highest good of the young, just as you expect a good gardener to give his attention first to the young plants, and after that to the others. - Socrates "

― Plato , Euthyphro

6 " There is no greater moment in life than that when we discover the unique design which has shaped our lives from the moment of birth, save one:
The instant we recognize destiny, accept it and then begin to create the rest of our own lives within it using the power of free will.
When this threshold has been crossed, nothing can stop our inevitable journey into the highest good for ourselves and all around us.
This is healing.
This is actualization.
This is integration.
This is joy.
And it is the birthright of every incarnated soul on this planet. "

― Jacob Nordby

7 " The miracles of healing, important as they were, were not an end in themselves. They did not constitute the highest good of the messianic salvation. This fact is illustrated by the arrangement of the phrases in Matthew 11:4-5. Greater than deliverance of the blind and the lame, the lepers and the deaf, even than raising of the dead, was the preaching of the good news to the poor. This “gospel” was the very presence of Jesus himself, and the joy and fellowship that he brought to the poor. "

― George Eldon Ladd , A Theology of the New Testament