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John Daniel Quotes

We are never far from the lilt and swirl of living water. Whether to fish or swim or paddle, of only to stand and gaze, to glance as we cross a bridge, all of us are drawn to rivers, all of us happily submit to their

We are never far from the lilt and swirl of living water. Whether to fish or swim or paddle, of only to stand and gaze, to glance as we cross a bridge, all of us are drawn to rivers, all of us happily submit to their spell. We need their familiar mystery. We need their fluent lives interflowing with our own.

John Daniel
Bridges, Rivers, Water
John Daniel (2009). “The Far Corner: Northwestern Views on Land, Life, and Literature”, p.108, Counterpoint

We live in a mystery. Our lives have flowed from exploding stars, from tides of time and gravity beyond our ken.

John Daniel
Life, Stars, Tides

We don't tend to ask where a lake comes from. It lies before us, contained and complete, tantalizing in its depth but not its origin. A river is a different kind of mystery, a mystery of distance and becoming, a mystery of source. Touch its fluent body and you touch far places. You touch a story that must end somewhere but cannot stop telling itself, a story that is always just beginning.

John Daniel
Distance, Lying, Lakes
John Daniel (2009). “The Far Corner: Northwestern Views on Land, Life, and Literature”, p.67, Counterpoint

At Reed College, I learned very quickly that I didn't know nearly enough. I learned, first, that every student there was as smart as I was, and quite a few seemed smarter.

John Daniel
Smart, College, Firsts
John Daniel (2012). “Rogue River Journal: A Winter Alone”, p.136, Counterpoint

The Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648, was a series of conflicts that became the last great struggle of religious wars in Europe. It was fought almost exclusively on German soil...but before the war ended, it involved most of the nations of Europe. The underlying cause of the war was the deep-seated hostility between the German Protestants and German Catholics - with the Jesuits and Cardinal Richelieu, who was the real ruler of France, fanning the fires to accomplish their ends.

John Daniel
Religious, Real, War

The stream sings a subdued music, a scarcely audible lilt, faint and fluid syllables not quite said. It slips away into its future, where it already is, and flows steadily forth from up the canyon, a fountain of rumors from regions known to it and not to me.

John Daniel
Rivers, Rumor, Environmental
John Daniel (2009). “The Far Corner: Northwestern Views on Land, Life, and Literature”, p.67, Counterpoint

In the agreement to rescue Rome [i.e., the Roman Catholic Church's hierarchy] from the predicament of losing its world control to Protestantism, and to preserve the spiritual and temporal supremacy which the popes [had] 'usurped' during the Middle Ages, Rome now 'sold' the [Roman Catholic] Church to the Society of Jesus [i.e., the Jesuits]; in essence the popes surrendered themselves into their hands.

John Daniel
Spiritual, Jesus, Agreement

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