Attribute

Famous quotes containing the word attribute:

    Catholics think of grace as a supernatural power which God dispenses, primarily through the Church and its sacraments, to purify the souls of naturally sinful human beings, and render them capable of holiness.... Protestants think of grace as an attribute of God rather than a gift from God. It is a shorthand term signifying God’s determination to love, forgive, and save His human children, however little they deserve it.
    Louis Cassels, U.S. religious columnist. “The Catholic-Protestant Differences,” What’s the Difference?, Doubleday (1965)

    Long before Einstein told us that matter is energy, Machiavelli and Hobbes and other modern political philosophers defined man as a lump of matter whose most politically relevant attribute is a form of energy called “self-interestedness.” This was not a portrait of man “warts and all.” It was all wart.
    George F. Will (b. 1941)

    Mercy is above this sceptred sway,
    It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
    It is an attribute to God himself;
    And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
    When mercy seasons justice.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)