Insular Gospel Books

Famous quotes containing the words insular, gospel and/or books:

    As this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horror of the half known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return!
    Herman Melville (1819–1891)

    He has the earnestness of a prophet. In an age of pedantry and dilettantism, he has no grain of these in his composition. There is nowhere else, surely, in recent readable English, or other books, such direct and effectual teaching, reproving, encouraging, stimulating, earnestly, vehemently, almost like Mahomet, like Luther.... His writings are a gospel to the young of this generation; they will hear his manly, brotherly speech with responsive joy, and press forward to older or newer gospels.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    Good books do not make people wiser or happier—only more conscious.
    Mason Cooley (b. 1927)