Tag Archives: New Testament

FIVE WISE LINES [November 2025]

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Taken at Fo Guang Shan, near Kaohsiung in Southern Taiwan.

A thing is mighty big when time
and distance cannot shrink it.

Zora Neale hurston; Tell my horse

…if you want to be elected, it is better
to be Mean than to be Funny.

hunter s. thompson; Better than sex

And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile,
go with him twain.

jesus; Matthew 5:38-40

The only gamblers who will talk openly
are the ones who don’t make money.
The successful ones keep their mouths shut.

Kit chellel; lucky devils

To live a creative life,
we must lose our fear of being wrong.

joseph chilton pearce

BOOK: “The Jefferson Bible” by Thomas Jefferson

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The Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus of NazarethThe Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth by Thomas Jefferson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

PDF available online [Public Domain]

Thomas Jefferson (yes, the same one who wrote the Declaration of Independence) produced this book by cutting and pasting excerpts from the Gospels so as to produce a distillation of who he believed Jesus was and what Jesus’s essential teachings were. It mixes parables and other New Testament teachings with biographical description.

There is an introduction which offers the reader more specific insight into Jefferson’s thinking than can be gleaned merely from what he includes and what he trims. The Introduction also discusses the similarities and differences between Christian philosophy and that of the Jews, the Greeks, and the Romans.

If you’re looking for a condensed version of the New Testament, I’d highly recommend this book. Jefferson was obviously a sharp guy who looked at the Bible from the perspective of Enlightenment-era thinking.

View all my reviews

Five Wise Lines [May 2024]

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Play is a state of mind, rather than an activity.

Stuart brown in PLay: How it shapes the brain, opens the imagination, and Invigorates the soul

My sins are running out behind me, and I do not see them, and today I come to judge the sins of another!

From Sayings of the Desert Fathers
(A Senior Monk’s reply upon being asked to Judge a younger monk’s actions)

Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth! But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

Matthew 5: 38&39

I have no scepter, but I have a pen.

Voltaire to Fredrick the great

If a man is born to error, let us wish him virtuous errors.

Voltaire; ON Superstition