Sermon quotes on irony

Francis Chan

The irony is that while God doesn’t need us but still wants us, we desperately need God but don’t really want Him most of the time.

 

Don DeLillo

“No sense of the irony of human experience, that we are the highest form of life on earth, and yet ineffably sad because we know what no other animal knows, that we must die.”
 White Noise

 

René Descartes

Common sense is the most widely shared commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it.

David Foster Wallace

Postmodern irony and cynicism’s become an end in itself, a measure of hip sophistication and literary savvy. Few artists dare to try to talk about ways of working toward redeeming what’s wrong, because they’ll look sentimental and naive to all the weary ironists. Irony’s gone from liberating to enslaving. There’s some great essay somewhere that has a line about irony being the song of the prisoner who’s come to love his cage…

 

L.A. Times

George Harrison memorial tree, killed by beetles

 

Michel de Montaigne 

I quote others only in order the better to express myself.

The Complete Essays

 

Reinhold Niebuhr 

Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. 

Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. 

Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love. 

No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.

The Irony of American History

Robert Orben

A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns that “individuality” is the key to success.