Nigh

Famous quotes containing the word nigh:

    “There is Lowell, who’s striving Parnassus to climb
    With a whole bale of isms tied together with rhyme,
    He might get on alone, spite of brambles and boulders,
    But he can’t with that bundle he has on his shoulders,
    The top of the hill he will ne’er come nigh reaching
    Till he learns the distinction ‘twixt singing and preaching;
    James Russell Lowell (1819–1891)

    So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
    So near is God to man,
    When Duty whispers low, Thou must,
    The youth replies, I can.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    The problem of the novelist who wishes to write about a man’s encounter with God is how he shall make the experience—which is both natural and supernatural—understandable, and credible, to his reader. In any age this would be a problem, but in our own, it is a well- nigh insurmountable one. Today’s audience is one in which religious feeling has become, if not atrophied, at least vaporous and sentimental.
    Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964)