the tongues QUOTES

1 " The world’s most lethal venom is not found on the tongues of serpents, but on the tongues of a disgruntled wife. "

―

2 " If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing. "

3 " Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not money, I am become as a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not money, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not money, it profiteth me nothing. Money suffereth long, and is kind; money envieth not; money vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. . . . And now abideth faith, hope, money, these three; but the greatest of these is money. I Corinthians xiii (adapted) "

4 " A geas was a contract with the goddess of Fate. Sometimes one was born indentured, other times it was bestowed upon one as a curse. Because if one did not fulfill the terms of one's geas, one died. It was old magic, the magic of the gods, spoken in the tongues of those who controlled the dragons—and it was supposed to be extinct. "

― Nenia Campbell , Touched with Sight (Shadow Thane, #2)

5 " My heart's scripture tastes
foreign in the mouths of
cowards and on the tongues of
those who have never breathed in
the moon and breathed out the world. "

―

6 " On the edge of a tropical ocean, in a thousand reflections of the silver light of an invisible moon, among undulations of restless waters, ceaselessly changing...

Among silent breakers, the tremors of the shining surface, in the swift flux and reflux martyrizing the patches of light, in the rendings of luminous loops and arcs, and lines, in the occultations and reappearances of dancing bursts of light being decomposed, recomposed, contracted, spread out, only to be re-distributed once more before me, with me, within me, drowned, and unendurably buffeted, my calm violated a thousand times by the tongues of infinity, oscillating, sinusoidally overrun by the multitude of liquid lines. enormous with a thousand folds, I was and I was not, I was caught, I was lost, I was in a state of complete ubiquity. The thousands upon thousands of rustlings were my own thousand shatterings. "

― Henri Michaux , Miserable Miracle

7 " Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal; and though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part, and prophesy in part.But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. "

8 " He that asks me what heaven is, means not to hear me, but to silence me; He knows I cannot tell him; when I meet him there, I shall be able to tell him, and then he will be as able to tell me; yet then we shall be but able to tell one another, this, this that we enjoy is heaven, but the tongues of angels, the tongues of glorified saints, shall not be able to express what that heaven is; for, even in heaven our faculties shall be finite. "

9 " If I speak in the tongues of Reformers and of professional theologians, and I have not personal faith in Christ, my theology is nothing but the noisy beating of a snare drum. And if I have analytic powers and the gift of creating coherent conceptual systems of theology, so as to remove liberal objections, and have not personal hope in God, I am nothing. And if I give myself to resolving the debate between supra and infralapsarianism, and to defending inerrancy, and to learning the Westminster Catechism, yea, even the larger one, so as to recite it by heart backwards and forwards, and have not love, I have gained nothing. "

― Kevin J. Vanhoozer

10 " For centuries poets, some poets, have tried to give a voice to the animals, and readers, some readers, have felt empathy and sorrow. If animals did have voices, and they could speak with the tongues of angels--at the very least with the tongues of angels--they would be unable to save themselves from us. What good would language do? Their mysterious otherness has not saved them, nor have their beautiful songs and coats and skins and shells and eyes. We discover the remarkable intelligence of the whale, the wolf, the elephant--it does not save them, nor does our awareness of the complexity of their lives. Their strength, their skills, their swiftness, the beauty of their flights. It matters not, it seems, whether they are large or small, proud or shy, docile or fierce, wild or domesticated, whether they nurse their young or brood patiently on eggs. If they eat meat, we decry their viciousness; if they eat grasses and seeds, we dismiss them as weak. There is not one of them, not even the songbird who cannot, who does not, conflict with man and his perceived needs and desires. St. Francis converted the wolf of Gubbio to reason, but he performed this miracle only once and as miracles go, it didn’t seem to capture the public’s fancy. Humans don’t want animals to reason with them. It would be a disturbing, unnerving, diminishing experience; it would bring about all manner of awkwardness and guilt. "

― Joy Williams , Ill Nature

11 " Sir Mark Turner," he said. " I speak with the tongues of a thousand angels. Butterflies follow me wherever I go. Birds sing when I take a breath. "

12 " With widened eyes she stumbled backwards, not able to take her gaze from the flames engulfing the wooden shed right in front of them, wrapping it into their embrace before taking it over. Black parts of smutted wood started to glow, welcoming the tongues of fire that devoured the shed inch by inch. "

― Jessica Werner , Sra'kalor (Ashwood Falls #1)

13 " There is no curse in Elvish, Entish, or the tongues of Men for this treachery. "

― J.R.R. Tolkien , The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings, #2)

14 " We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flames are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one. "

― T.S. Eliot , Four Quartets

15 " Lebedev: ...There'll be a scandal, the tongues of the whole district will buzz with gossip, but it's better to go through a scandal, isn't it, than to destroy yourself for your whole life. "

― Anton Chekhov , Ivanov