Home > Work > The Bone House (Bright Empires, #2)
1 " Contrary to what many may think, immortality is not a fairy tale invented to compensate for an unhappy life. Rather, it is the perception shared by nearly all sentient beings that our conscious lives are not bounded by this time and space. We are not merely lumps of animate matter. We are living spirits—we all feel this innately. And in our deepest hearts, we know that we can only find ultimate fulfilment in union with the supreme spiritual reality—a reality that appears, even during this earthly life, to take us beyond the narrow limits of time. "
― Stephen R. Lawhead , The Bone House (Bright Empires, #2)
2 " All human beings, by virtue of having been born into this world, are immortal beings—not our material bodies; those are sadly quite fragile, inasmuch as they are bound by the laws of matter and time. The spirit, however, is indestructible. It obeys different laws. "
3 " Alas,” mused Roger Bacon, “it is not only the public which so often fails to appreciate the nature of our more delicate investigations—many of our leading churchmen are particularly lacking in the finer faculties of discernment. Led by the twin banes of intolerance and ignorance, they too often condemn where they rightly should revere. They traduce what should be championed. They denounce what should be praised. "
4 " Time . . . strange stuff,” mused Thomas. “Time is the central mystery of our existence. It confines and defines us in many ways. We are obedient to its inexorable mechanism throughout our lives, and yet we know almost nothing about it. Why does it flow in only one direction? What is it made of ? How is it regulated? Is it everywhere the same for everyone? Or might its substance or speed be altered by mechanisms as yet undiscovered? "
5 " See here, if we can establish an affinity with the eternal, ever-living Creator, then is it not likely that this affinity, this relationship, if you like, will endure beyond the death of the material body? "
6 " For the scholar no effort is ever wasted. "
7 " There was a rightness to things that surpassed understanding, but she knew beyond all doubt that in each and every circumstance her feet had been guided along this path and to this place. A favourite saying in China—which she had heard on occasion from her own grandmother—was that the threads of life are easy to weave, but difficult to untangle. "
8 " Just when I begin to imagine I have achieved some pinnacle of understanding, reached the summit of the highest climb . . . I scramble the last few feet to the top only to see that I have merely gained a foothold on a narrow plateau and that entire new mountain ranges rise before me, serried ranks of peaks, each one higher than the last. "
9 " She walked along beneath a sky of bird’s-egg blue, "
