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Spiritual Perception: Quotations from Burning Words

There will be and can be no rest till we admit, what cannot be denied, that there is in man a third faculty, which I call simply the faculty of apprehending the Infinite, not only in religion, but in all things; a power independent of sense and reason, a power in a certain sense contradicted by sense and reason ; but yet, I suppose, a very real power, if we see how it has held its own from the beginning of the world how neither sense nor reason has been able to overcome it, while it alone is able to overcome both reason and sense.— MAX MÜLLER

The fact is those root-truths on which the foundations of our being rest, are apprehended not logically at all, but mystically. This faculty of spiritual apprehension, which is a very different one from those which are trained in schools and colleges, must be educated and fed, not less, but more carefully than our lower faculties, else it will be starved and die, however learned and able in other respects we may become.— J. C. SHAIRP

He who never looks up to a living God, to a heavenly presence, loses the power of perceiving that presence, and the universe slowly turns into a dead machine, clashing and grinding on, without purpose or end. If the light within us be darkness, how great is that darkness!— J. F. CLARKE

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone,— GEORGE ELIOT