Quotes about Effect

Actions have consequences.

Words and actions are transient things, and being once past, are nothing; but the effect of them on an immortal soul may be endless.

At best, the theory of substitutionary atonement has inoculated us against the true effects of the Gospel, causing us to largely "thank" Jesus instead of honestly imitating him. At worst, it led us to see God as a cold, brutal figure, who demands acts of violence before God can love his own creation

Only love effects true inner transformation, not duress, guilt, shunning, or social pressure.

In the Franciscan school, God did not need to be paid in order to love and forgive God's own creation for its failures. Love cannot be bought by some "necessary sacrifice"; if it could, it would not and could not work its transformative effects.

When beauty is universal, it loses its power to move the heart, and only its absence can produce any emotional effect.

None can believe how powerful prayer is, and what it is able to effect, but those who have learned it by experience.

But in reading all of the passages in which Jesus uses the word hell, what is so striking is that people believing the right or wrong things isn't his point. He's often not talking about beliefs as we think of them--he's talking about anger and lust and indifference. He's talking about the state of his listeners' hearts, about how they conduct themselves, how they interact with their neighbors, about the kind of effect they have on the world.

I can't think why fancy religions should have such a ghastly effect on one's grammar. It's a kind of intellectual rot that sets in, I'm afraid.

Everything that exists in your life, does so because of two things: something you did or something you didn't do.

When preaching is done right, it can change lives. When it's done badly, my failure goes beyond the merely human.

There are no accidents in my philosophy. Every effect must have its cause. The past is the cause of the present, and the present will be the cause of the future. All these are links in the endless chain stretching from the finite to the infinite.