Quotes for All
Some of the parables that Matthew records and that Jesus delivered as part of his Olivet Discourse-such as the ten virgins and their lamps or the servants and the talents they were given-are some of the best known of Jesus’ teachings. Reading them in the context of his prophecies about the end of the world, … Read more
In His discourses, His miracles, His parables, His sufferings, His resurrection, He gradually raises the pedestal of His humanity before the world, but under a cover, until the shaft reaches from the grave to the heavens, whenHe lifts the curtain, and displays the figure of a man on a throne, for the worship of the … Read more
Each state of the human mind has some parable in the physical creation by which it is shadowed forth; nor is it only artists and poets, but even the most abstract thinkers that have drawn from this source. Lively activity we name fire; time is a stream that rolls on, sweeping all before it; eternity … Read more
He who rejoices even at the stake triumphs not over pain but over the absence of pain where he had anticipated feeling it. A parable. Friedrich Nietzsche
whatever is profound loves masks; what is most profound even hates image and parable. Friedrich Nietzsche
And I offer you this parable: Not a few who sought to cast out their devil entered into the swine themselves. Friedrich Nietzsche
On every parable you ride to every truth. Friedrich Nietzsche
The end of a melody is not its goal; but nonetheless, if the melody had not reached its end it would not have reached its goal either. A parable. Friedrich Nietzsche
He [Jesus] speaks in parables, and though we have approached these parables reverentially all these many years and have heard them expounded as grave and reverent vehicles of holy truth, I suspect that many if not all of them were originally not grave at all but were antic, comic, often more than just a little … Read more
I suspect that Jesus spoke many of his parables as a kind of sad and holy joke and that that may be part of why he seemed reluctant to explain them because if you have to explain a joke, you might as well save your breath. Frederick Buechner