Quotes About Refuge

Science has destroyed even the refuge of the inner life. What was once a sheltering haven has become a place of terror

When science drove the gods out of nature, they took refuge in poetry and the porticos of civic buildings.

Yosemite Park is a place of rest, a refuge from the roar and dust and weary, nervous, wasting work of the lowlands, in which one gains the advantages of both solitude and society.

We need a home in the psychological sense as much as we need one in the physical: to compensate for a vulnerability. We need a refuge to shore up our states of mind, because so much of the world is opposed to our allegiances. We need our rooms to align us to desirable versions of ourselves and to keep alive the important, evanescent sides of us.

The twenty-four-hour diner, the station waiting room and the motel are sanctuaries for those who have, for noble reasons, failed to find a home in the ordinary world, sanctuaries for those whom Baudelaire might have dignified with the honorific 'poets'.

In other words, art is a realm entirely separated from the interests of real life-a refuge for detached and gifted souls from sordid political and economic struggles.

Most people have forgotten nowadays what a house can mean, though some of us have come to realize it as never before. It is a kingdom of its own in the midst of the world, a stronghold amid life's storms and stresses, a refuge, even a sanctuary." — Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

Many persons seek community because they are afraid of loneliness...those who take refuge in community while fleeing from themselves are misuing it to indulge in empty talk and distraction, no matter how spiritual this idle talk and distraction may appear...it is precisely such misuse of community that creates deadly isolation of human beings.

Originality is the last refuge of a hero...

Man must be able to escape civilization if he is to survive. Some of his greatest needs are for refuges and retreats where he can recapture for a day or a week the primitive conditions of life.

In the end, yes, it is a famous bookstore and, yes, it is of no small literary importance. But more than anything, Shakespeare and Company is a refuge, like the church across the river. A place where the owner allows everyone to take what they need and give what they can.

Lord, help me resist the inclination to rely upon my own wisdom and strength which makes me vulnerable to temptation. Help me avoid fleeing responsibility and neglecting to run to You for refuge. My natural instincts would lead me to a position in which the enemy would defeat me, but You are my righteousness. I seek You and long to see Your face.

You see, amnesia is usually the result of mental unbalance. It's an attempt on the part of the mind to escape from something that the mind either can't cope with or doesn't want to cope with. It's a refuge. It's the means a man uses to close the door of his mind on something that may lead to insanity.

I never thought of the future as any kind of solution. The future is always the refuge of fools. It arrives, and they have to explain why it didn't arrive the way it was supposed to, or prove that this was exactly what they predicted. That's why I prefer to drink alone or with friends and wait for the past to take us into its possession. (page 122)

Breathing air is a liberating experience. It freed our ancestors from the constraints of staying wet or having to remain within easy reach of water for refuge, respiration or reproduction. But the biggest change it made in our lives was to expose us to a whole new range of sensory experience.

The game of basketball has been everything to me. My place of refuge, place I've always gone where I needed comfort and peace. It's been the site of intense pain and the most intense feelings of joy and satisfaction. It's a relationship that has evolved over time, given me the greatest respect and love for the game.

My family and I survived Hurricane Katrina in 2005; we left my grandmother's flooding house, were refused shelter by a white family, and took refuge in trucks in an open field during a Category Five hurricane. I saw an entire town demolished, people fighting over water, breaking open caskets searching for something that could help them survive.

A technical objection is the first refuge of a scoundrel.

A civilized man in his position would have sought doubtful refuge in the conclusion that he was insane; it did not occur to the Cimmerian to doubt his senses. He knew he was face to face with a demon of the Elder World, and the realization robbed him of all his faculties except sight.

College is a refuge from hasty judgment.

six millions of souls who lived here for love of religion. It was these who had despaired of modern life, tired out with change and effort, who had fled from the new system for refuge to the Church,

The survival lesson from studies and stories on backstage regions is that, to reduce your exposure and to recharge your defenses, it helps to find—and if necessary, invent—asshole-free zones where you and others can take temporary refuge.

He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge. – Psalm 91:4

For you have been a shelter for me. – Psalm 61:2–3