Quotes About Ecclesiastes

'There's nothing new under the sun': that's what you wrote, Ecclesiastes. But you yourself were born new under the sun.

Do we have the Book of Ecclesiastes? One. A man named Harris in Youngstown. Montag. Granger took Montag's shoulder firmly. Walk carefully. Guard your health. If anything should happen to Harris, you are the Book of Ecclesiastes. See how important you've become in the last minute!

Ecclesiastes makes the… astonishing claim that living well here and now in this world depends on time travel being possible—not to us, but to God…God will retrieve every single injustice, every single time, and every single activity…Knowing that God is outside of time and sees it all and will, in the end, bring to judgement both the righteous and the wicked, stops me needing to be in control of everything that happens to me.

Based upon the message of "nothing new under the sun" in Ecclesiastes,] If nothing ever changes, then God has no plan.

Pinker quotes Chomsky's remark that 'ignorance can be divided into problems and mysteries' and continues: 'I wrote this book because dozens of mysteries of the mind, from mental images to romantic love, have recently been upgraded to problems (though there are still some mysteries too!)' Well, cheerfulness sells books, but Ecclesiastes got it right: 'the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning.

Consider the work of God, for who is able to straighten what He has bent? In the day of prosperity be happy, but in the day of adversity consider — God has made the one as well as the other so that man may not discover anything that will be after him. (Ecclesiastes 7:13-14, NASB)

He was right. Without God at the center, it is hopeless; it is empty; and it was designed by God to be so. The theme of Ecclesiastes could be stated, "Life is supposed to taste like cardboard if you insist on eating the box!

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all. Ecclesiastes

Therefore, Ecclesiastes advises us to remember our Creator, which will equip us to go through the losses of our later years well. How simple yet how profound is that advice!

But today I would suggest you ponder these verses from Ecclesiastes: "And he would have seven flights of madness in his soul, who, having hung his clothes beneath the sun, would groan at the hour of rain

For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. —Ecclesiastes 3:1

God has made everything beautiful for its own time. —Ecclesiastes 3:11

Torn between violence and disillusionment, I seem to myself a terrorist who, going out in the street to perpetrate some outrage, stops on the way to consult Ecclesiastes or Epictetus.

The authors of Job and Ecclesiastes explicitly state that there is no afterlife. The book of Amos insists that the people of God suffer because God is punishing them for their sins; the book of Job insists that the innocent can suffer; and the book of Daniel indicates that the innocent in fact will suffer. All of these books are different, all of them have a message, and all of the messages deserve to be heard.

Ecclesiastes shows that man without God is in total ignorance and inevitable misery.

The sun hides not the ocean, which is the dark side of this earth, and which is two thirds of this earth. So, therefore, that mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be true-- not true, or undeveloped. With books the same. The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the truest of all books is Solomon's, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered steel of woe.

The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the truest of all books is Solomon's, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered steel of woe.

For in much wisdom is much grief,' Ecclesiastes said.

Of all I have ever seen or learned, that book seems to me the noblest, the wisest, and the most powerful expression of man's life upon this earth — and also the highest flower of poetry, eloquence, and truth. I am not given to dogmatic judgments in the matter of literary creation, but if I had to make one I could say that Ecclesiastes is the greatest single piece of writing I have ever known, and the wisdom expressed in it the most lasting and profound.

And nearly all socialists, like most other Oklahomans, were devout Christians. They flocked to yearly encampments that blended a faith in Jesus with a belief in socialism. At one gathering, a preacher proclaimed, "Christ's church was a working class church" and cited the verse from Ecclesiastes that decrees "the Profit of the Earth is for all."5

I desire to forget life. Life is a hideous invention of I know not whom. It lasts no time at all, and is worth nothing. One breaks one's neck in living. Life is a theatre set in which there are but few practicable entrances. Happiness is an antique reliquary painted on one side only. Ecclesiastes says: 'All is vanity.' I agree with that good man, who never existed, perhaps.

In The Secret Life we see the Outsider cut off from other people by an intelligence that ruthlessly destroys their values, and prevents him from self-expression through his inability to substitute new values. His problem is Ecclesiastes' 'Vanitatum vanitas'; nothing is worth doing.

Church kids took seats around him on the ground. "What else do you have?" "Well," said Serge, putting his left shoe back on. "There's Casey Kasem's American Top Forty. You know where the oldest lyrics ever to be heard on his show came from?" Heads shook. "Book of Ecclesiastes." He stood. "Adapted for the Byrds' mega-hit 'Turn! Turn! Turn!'" "Cool.

Mystery is our mind's food. If we truly said, "I have seen everything," we would conclude, as did the author of Ecclesiastes, "all is vanity.