9 Quotes & Sayings By Sheldon Vanauken

Sheldon Vanauken is an author and speaker. He is the author of such bestselling books as The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women and The Heart of a Woman: Finding Your Unique Voice. His books have been translated into thirty languages and have sold over 25 million copies worldwide. He holds a B.A Read more

from Fresno State University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, where he was a student of Herbert Marcuse, one of the founding fathers of the New Left.

1
Whatever one of us asked the other to do - it was assumed the asker would weigh all the consequences - the other would do. Thus one might wake the other in the night and ask for a cup of water; and the other would peacefully (and sleepily) fetch it. We, in fact, defined courtesy as 'a cup of water in the night'. And we considered it a very great courtesy to ask for the cup as well as to fetch it. . Sheldon Vanauken
2
It is not possible to be 'incidentally a Christian.' The fact of Christianity must be overwhelmingly first or nothing. This suggests a reason for the dislike of Christians by nominal or non- Christians: their lives contain no overwhelming first but many balances. Sheldon Vanauken
Her death...brought me as nothing else could do to know...
3
Her death...brought me as nothing else could do to know and end my jealousy of God. It saved her faith from assault. Sheldon Vanauken
4
Both Heaven and Hell are retroactive, all of one's life will eventually be known to have been one or the other. Sheldon Vanauken
5
To believe with certainty, somebody said, one has to begin by doubting. Sheldon Vanauken
6
C.S. Lewis in his second letter to me at Oxford, asked how it was that I, as a product of a materialistic universe, was not at home there. 'Do fish complain of the sea for being wet? Or if they did, would that fact itself not strongly suggest that they had not always been, or would not always be, purely aquatic creatures? Then, if we complain of time and take such joy in the seemingly timeless moment, what does that suggest? It suggests that we have not always been or will not always be purely temporal creatures. It suggests that we were created for eternity. Not only are we harried by time, we seem unable, despite a thousand generations, even to get used to it. We are always amazed by it--how fast it goes, how slowly it goes, how much of it is gone. Where, we cry, has the time gone? We aren't adapted to it, not at home in it. If that is so, it may appear as a proof, or at least a powerful suggestion, that eternity exists and is our home. Sheldon Vanauken
7
What we did see was that jealousy is fear: it can corrode even if quite baseless. Sheldon Vanauken
8
Corruption is never compulsory. Sheldon Vanauken