Lionel Blue famous quotes

In speaking of Jesus, I must speak about Christianity because I do not think it possible or profitable to divide the two.
-- Lionel Blue

#Christian #Jesus #Thinking

Jews are just like everyone else, only more so.
-- Lionel Blue

#Jew

I am pleased now that I have lived in a gay as well as a religious ghetto, though it hasn't been very comfortable. Taken together, their limitations cancel each other out and I have seen the world more kindly and more honestly.
-- Lionel Blue

#Religious #Taken #Ghetto

Early on I saw the repression and idolatry of Stalinism, and when it cracked, I was open to religion again.
-- Lionel Blue

#Saws #Idolatry

For a devotee or lover, the being, worshipped or loved, will always be the only one for her or him.
-- Lionel Blue

#Lovers

Discrimination against Jews can be read in Thomas Aquinas, and insults against Jews in Martin Luther.
-- Lionel Blue

#Insult #Discrimination #Luther

What would I have done if I'd been put to the test? Would I have risked my own life for people I hardly knew? Probably, I would have looked the other way at best or become another apologist for evil at worst.
-- Lionel Blue

#Sorry #People #Evil

An aged rabbi, crazed with liberalism, once said to me, We Jews are just ordinary human beings. Only a bit more so!
-- Lionel Blue

#Ordinary #Said #Jew

I feel that the Christian experience and the Jewish one have much to give each other. If this open society continues and there is no return to political anti-Semitism, then this encounter, deeper than any theology, may happen.
-- Lionel Blue

#Christian #Giving #Political

At religious instruction classes, I encountered The Pilgrims Progress by John Bunyan, and the sincerity of the traveller in that book was overwhelming.
-- Lionel Blue

#Religious #Book #Class

On the way to work good-hearted young girls sometimes offer me their seats, which I accept and bless them in return, a transaction satisfying to all concerned.
-- Lionel Blue

#Girl #Way #Return

Praying privately in churches, I began to discover that heaven was my true home and also that it was here and now, woven into this life.
-- Lionel Blue

#Home #Heaven #Church

I once asked God what I could give him. "Your problems," he said. "I've got everything else.
-- Lionel Blue

#Giving #Problem #Said

I was not comfortable worshipping another Jew.
-- Lionel Blue

#Jew

I didn't want to be on the losing side. I was fed up with Jewish weakness, timidity and fear. I didn't want any more Jewish sentimentality and Jewish suffering. I was sickened by our sad songs.
-- Lionel Blue

#Song #Suffering #Weakness

I found that when I did something for the sake of heaven, heaven happened. These things changed my life. I owe them to my encounter with Christianity.
-- Lionel Blue

#Heaven #Encounters #Sake

I began to see that my problems, seen spiritually, were really my soul's plusses.
-- Lionel Blue

#Soul #Problem

If a dish doesn't turn out right, change the name and don't bat an eyelid. A fallen souffle is only a risen omelette. It depends on the self-confidence with which you present it.
-- Lionel Blue

#Confidence #Self #Names

I have ended as a Reform Rabbi, grateful to Christianity for so many good things.
-- Lionel Blue

#Grateful #Reform #Christianity

To change, to convert? Why bother?
-- Lionel Blue

#Bother #Converting #Why Bother

I recovered my infant Judaism, but in a reformist version.
-- Lionel Blue

#Judaism #Infant

I was certainly open for something being on the edge of a nervous breakdown, perplexed by my own sexuality. I was gay.
-- Lionel Blue

#Gay #Nervous #Sexuality

It was admitted by the early rabbis that the sectarians could be as full of good works as eggs were full of meat.
-- Lionel Blue

#Eggs #Meat #Good Work

I literally fell among Quakers when I went up to Oxford.
-- Lionel Blue

#Oxford #Quaker

For some years I deserted religion in favour of Marxism. The republic of goodness seemed more attainable than the Kingdom of God.
-- Lionel Blue

#Years #Favour #Republic

During the Second World War, evacuated to non-Jewish households, I encountered Christianity at home and in school.
-- Lionel Blue

#War #Home #School

I learnt pity, sympathy, and what it was like to be at the other end of the stick. Such lessons can't be learnt in lecture halls.
-- Lionel Blue

#Sympathy #Sticks #Lessons

Old friends die on you, and they're irreplaceable. You become dependent.
-- Lionel Blue

#Old Friends #Irreplaceable

To my surprise, my 70s are nicer than my 60s and my 60s than my 50s, and I wouldn't wish my teens and 20s on my enemies.
-- Lionel Blue

#Birthday #Enemy #Wish

My mother enjoyed old age, and because of her I've begun to enjoy parts of it too. So far I've had it good and am crumbling nicely.
-- Lionel Blue

#Birthday #Mother #Age

It's more fun to watch without joining in.
-- Lionel Blue

#Fun #Watches #Joining

Pious XII was too neutral to mention the gas chambers; decent people like my own family were turned into devils by crude Christianity.
-- Lionel Blue

#People #Devil #Good Christian

Because of my Marxism, I was not into myths or miracles, whether it was the virgin birth, the physical resurrection or casting out demons from an epileptic.
-- Lionel Blue

#Miracle #Casting #Birth

I was not allowed a physical lover. Falling in love with Love was the best I could get.
-- Lionel Blue

#Falling In Love #Fall #Lovers

My mother was a modern woman with a limited interest in religion. When the sun set and the fast of the Day of Atonement ended, she shot from the synagogue like a rocket to dance the Charleston.
-- Lionel Blue

#Dance #Mother #Rockets

This Christian poison hasn't stopped yet.
-- Lionel Blue

#Christian #Poison

The Christian use of religion as a personal love affair both shocked me, and attracted me.
-- Lionel Blue

#Christian #Use #Affair

I thought of such Christian inventions as the ghetto and the Jewish badge of shame. The Nazis didn't have to go very far to pick up their know-how.
-- Lionel Blue

#Christian #Ghetto #Shame

I still go to a Christian priory for retreats.
-- Lionel Blue

#Christian #Retreat #Stills

For a Christian, Jesus is the unique and only way that God has fully revealed himself. For a Jew this cannot be.
-- Lionel Blue

#Christian #Jesus #Unique

When you do a good turn you feel rich, even if you are broke.
-- Lionel Blue

#Inspirational #Rich #Broke

The real evidence for Jesus and Christianity is in how Jesus and the Christianity based on him manifest themselves in the lives of practicing Christians.
-- Lionel Blue

#Christmas #Christian #Jesus