The final test of religious faith is whether it will enable men to endure insecurity without complacency or despair, whether it can so interpret the ancient verities that they will not become mere escape hatches from responsibilities but instruments of insights into what civilization means.
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Nothing to me is more distasteful than that entire complacency and satisfaction which beam in the countenances of a newly married couple.
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A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over lousy fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average of the world’s great civilizations before they decline has been 200 years. These nations have progressed in this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to Complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back again to bondage.
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But now, before that new birth take place in the spirit of man, it wants, but knows not what, craves indeterminately (who will shew us any good?) not fixing upon any particular good that is sufficient and finite, and labouring under an ignorance of the infinite, together with a disaffection thereunto. Its wants and cravings are beyond the measure of all finite good; for suppose it to have never so large a share, nay, could it grasp and engross the whole of it, an unsatisfiedness and desire of more would still remain : but that more is somewhat indeterminate and merely imaginary, an infinite nothing, an idol of fancy, a god of its own making. God it must have; but what a one he is, it misapprehends, and, wherein it rightly apprehends him, likes and loves him not, will by no means choose, desire, or take complacency in him. So that an unregenerate soul is, while it is such, necessarily doomed to be miserable. It cannot be happy in any inferior good; and in the supreme, it will not. What the real wants and just cravings of a man's spirit therefore are, is not to be understood by considering it in that state. And if the work of the new creature were perfected in it, it would want and crave no more, but would be satisfied fully, and at perfect rest.
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To take the measure of oneself by reference to one's colleagues leads to envy or complacency rather than constructive self-examination.
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American life is a powerful solvent. It seems to neutralise every intellectual element, however tough and alien it may be, and to fuse it in the native good-will, complacency thoughtlessness, and optimism.
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So don't let money tell you who you are. Don't let power tell you who your are. Don't let enemies and -- for God's sake -- don't let your sins tell you who you are. Don't prove yourself. That's taken care of. All we have to do is express ourselves. It's difficult, but we're a lot more alive in pain than in complacency.
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I hate to see complacency prevail in our lives when it's so directly contrary to the teaching of Christ.
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Our civilization survives in the complacency of cowardly or malignant minds -- a sacrifice to the vanity of aging adolescents. In 1953, excess is always a comfort, and sometimes a career.
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The tragedy of life is not found in failure but complacency. Not in you doing too much, but doing too little. Not in you living above your means, but below your capacity. Never failure but low aim, is life greatest tragedy.
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Don't let your special character and values, the secret that you know and no one else does, the truth -- don't let that get swallowed up by the great chewing complacency.
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An audience shouldn't listen with complacency.
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