“The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows; but God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams. But God is the ocean. Therefore it becomes us to spend this life only as a journey toward heaven, as it becomes us to make the seeking of our highest end and proper good, the whole work of our lives; to which we should subordinate all other concerns of life. Why should we labour for, or set our hearts on, any thing else, but that which is our proper end, and true happiness?”

Jonathan Edwards, “The Christian Pilgrim,” in The Works

of Jonathan Edwards, ed. Edward Hickman, 2:244.

“What I really lack is to be clear in my mind what I am to do, not what I am to know, except in so far as a certain understanding must precede every action. The thing is to

understand myself, to see what God really wishes me to do…What good would it do me if the truth stood before me, cold and naked, not caring whether I recognized her or not, and

producing in me a shudder of fear rather than a trusting devotion?Must not the truth be taken up into my life? That is what I now recognize as the most important thing.”

Kierkegaard quoted in Charles E. Moore, Introduction to “Provocations”